Meet The Team

Meet the Patrons

Patron since 2015
Josette is a Leicester-born, acclaimed Shakespearian actress. She has performed with the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal National Theatre. She has won many Best Actress theatre awards and several film awards. For her services to drama she was awarded an honorary MA from the University of Leicester and in 2000 she was awarded an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List.

Patron since 2011
Andrew is a Conservative Party politician and businessman. Since May 2010 he has been the Member of Parliament for the constituency of North West Leicestershire.
Staffordshire-born, Andrew trained as a Royal Marines Officer. He later set up a family market business in Measham which continues to this day. He was previously Chair of the Institute of Directors for the East Midlands Region.

Patron
Leon is Coventry-born and was an accomplished English rugby union footballer, playing for Leicester Tigers, Gloucester and England before retiring. Leon has since been involved in business and networking, both in rugby and real estate. He is also the author of the acclaimed self-development book, ‘Life After Sport – from Boot Room to Boardroom’.

Meet the Board

Board member since 2013
Karen has recently relinquished her role as Director of Operations at CVQQ, an education charity that enables young people and adult volunteers from youth organisations to gain recognition for their work in the community. She was previously Head of Defence & International at the Institute of Leadership & Management (ILM), where she was responsible for teams in the UK and worldwide to provide the highest quality standard qualifications.
Karen is currently an Advisory Panel member and Rutland County Co-ordinator at Help for Heroes, and was until recently, a member of the Cranfield University Advisory Board at the Defence Academy.
Karen is passionate about leadership and management opportunities and is keen to see Action Deafness increase its profile of high-quality and accessible services available to D/deaf and hard of hearing people.

Board member since 2017
Emma is a parent of two Deaf children. She is a seasoned professional with more than 10 years’ of senior management experience in B2B and B2C technology sectors at an international level. Emma is an accomplished Commercial Marketing Director credited with increasing revenue and driving profit growth year on year. She has experience of collaborating with all members of her organisation to achieve business and financial objectives.

Board member since 2009
30 years ago very little help was available for deafened people. At this time Roland had a devastating experience when he lost his hearing, and nearly all means of communication, overnight. It was only through Roland’s determination that he was able to work his way through this difficult time. For many years he has used his experience of sudden hearing loss to support others.
Roland recently retired, having spent the last 20 years as an engineering consultant for Interfleet in Derby.
Roland is a former trustee of the National Association of Deafened People (NADP). He frequently meets and supports other people with recent substantial hearing loss as a volunteer for Hearing Link. This experience drives his ambition and aspirations to build Action Deafness into a sustainable and modern organisation to support local and regional people with acquired deafness or hearing loss.

Board member since 2013
Ben is a qualified architect with his own architecture business based in Rutland.
As well as being a single-figure golfer, he was recently secretary of England Deaf Golf. Ben says that despite being profoundly deaf, he has always lived in the mainstream world and communicated verbally using a cochlear implant device. Two years ago Ben started participating in the deaf community and initially found the experience daunting, but he is determined to fit in and would like to give something back to the community.

Board member since 2015
Alison is a former Senior Equality & Diversity Officer for the City of Lincoln Council and a founding proprietor of Lewis Training.
She now runs her own Interior design business in addition to property development in Lincolnshire.
Alison has significant experience in the areas of deafness, disability, discrimination & equality. She was also the first ‘Deaf’ person to qualify as an Audiologist in the NHS. Alison is currently a Trustee of DeafLincs.

Board member since 2017
Helen is a freelance consultant. A qualified teacher and NRCPD-registered Sign Language Translator, she was previously Programme Manager in Family Sign Language for the National Deaf Children’s Society, where she worked for 10 years. Helen is a passionate advocate for all Deaf people including children, young people, adults, families with Deaf/Disabled members, people with mental health needs and Deaf people with learning disabilities.

Board member since 2018
Lucy has a strong background in fundraising marketing management – developing and implementing strategies with the aim of delivering long term, sustainable income from individual supporters. Having worked for a range of voluntary organisations including Sense, she is now at international development charity, Practical Action.
As a Deaf BSL user, Lucy is passionate about equality and equity, and is keen to support Action Deafness’s strategic ambitions as a Deaf-led provider of high quality services for deaf and deafblind people.

Meet the Management Team

Joined Action Deafness in 2005 as Chief Executive. Currently chairs UK Council on Deafness and was previously President of International Committee of Sports for the Deaf (Deaflympics).

Highly experienced within the deaf/disability sector, Craig was previously Deputy Director of AoHL Care Services, Executive Director of Enham & European Union of the Deaf (EUD). He was awarded an MBE in 2006.

Joined Action Deafness in 2011 after 2 years as Finance Director of Rich Mix in East London. Spent 25 years in various finance and management roles within the private sector from auditing to financial services.

The following 20 years saw a change in taking up roles in arts and charity organisations including the Arts Council of England (Head of Resources), Nottingham Playhouse (Administration Director) and the old Leicester Haymarket Theatre.

Joined Action Deafness in 2013.
Registered CQC Manager since 2016 and Qualified BSL Tutor, Mhairi previously worked for Places for People as Tenancy Support Officer and is a Committee member for Communications Unlimited (CU). Mhairi is the Treasurer for Derby Deaf Football club and also a Camp Leader for Mablethorpe Deaf Children’s Camp.

Joined Action Deafness in 2013 and is Manager overseeing AD Communications Interpreting.
Qualified and registered interpreter and an experienced lecturer/trainer, Nigel is a Fellow of ASLI (Association of Sign Language Interpreters) and was previously Board member of WASLI (World Association of Sign Language Interpreters).

Re-joined Action Deafness in 2017. Fully Qualified Teacher of the Deaf, Stuart helped to establish Community Service in 2010. In the last seven years Stuart has been undertaking freelance sole trader and consultancy work and has written two books.

Meet the Communications Interpreting Team

Katie joined in 2016 and has been our Office Manager since 2017, having been promoted from Communications Interpreting Bookings Coordinator. She comes from a childcare/education background and then later moved into the training industry, working with apprentices as an assessor in childcare and an Enrolment coordinator.

Joined in 2015 and is a Qualified and Registered Interpreter. Based in Nottingham
Jennifer qualified with a Postgraduate Diploma in Interpreting from UCLan. She has been working as a freelance interpreter since 2013.

Joined in 2015 and is Bookings Coordinator / Trainee Interpreter. Based in Leicester.
Alison worked with college students as a Communication Support Worker in the Leicester area. She is attending the Post Graduate Diploma in Interpreting with the aim of becoming a member of our Qualified Interpreting team soon!

Meet the Community Team

Joined in 2017. Martin has worked in Care for many years. Achieved qualifications in Health and Social Care (NVQ Level 2&3) and Leadership and Management (Level 5 Diploma). Previously led a team of 10 people to provide support for 32 residents in a purpose built Dementia facility based in Yorkshire. Is the secretary of, and plays for, England Deaf Golf.

Joined in 2017 as Personal Assistant.
Jessy was promoted to a Senior PA role in 2017. Qualified and skilled in sports coaching, tutoring and delivering ‘deaf-friendly’ training courses. She has significant experience working in mental health settings.

Joined Action Deafness in 2013.
Stepped up to Senior PA role in 2014. Previously worked in the motor trade and news media services delivery. Current vice-chair of Communications Unlimited, Derby and was previously Chair for Derby Deaf Club.

Meet the Personal Assistants (AD Community)

Midlands

John Tivey

Michaela Ellington

Nehal Bhogaita

Maggie Smith

Leigh Blake

Kayleigh Wright

Leanne Dale

Karen Smith

Karen Hutton

Evica Popovic

David Branaghan

Billy Alton-Wood

Jama Doobeh

Ashley Holdsworth

Andrew Petch

Adam Miller

Rowan Warnock

Rasa Baltramaityte

Rajeev Bagga

Neil Presland

Nadia Mohamed

Thomas Platt

Ben Thomson

Julie Ford

East Sussex

Kim Wyer

Pamela Morgan

John Morgan

Cambridge

Gill Lawford

Vicky Matthews

Tony Haywood

Teri Ann Walker

Simon Richardson

Malcolm Wheeler

Kerry Miller

Durham

Helen Baines

Sophie Francis

Susan Graham

Kelly-Ann Taylor

Julie Bell

Haley Gowland

Lyndsey Lamplough

Cheryl Stirling

Karin Hall

Tracy Ward

Susan Sandberg-Hogg

Kathryn Pearsall

Victoria Silvester-Garratty

Annabelle Loo

“And of course we work with many other dedicated professionals throughout the UK to deliver specialist services in BSL interpreting, video relay interpreting, community support and personal care. The team do an amazing job to make a real difference to the lives of our customers and service users. You can get updates about how we are growing and continuing to meet the needs in our community through our social media output. Why not join the conversation?”